The voting year of 2024 has started with the first republican caucus in Iowa. The race between former UN-ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former president Donald J. Trump was decided in clear fashion.
Credit/NBC News
On January 15th started the caucus in Iowa. The election didn't take place in designated polling stations, but at meetings from the Republican Party throughout the state. Shortly after the polls started, various news stations reported Trumps clear victory already, underlining his strong stance in the GOP but also in the state of Iowa.
Trump had about 51% with over 56.000 votes in his favor. The highest percentage was in Keokuk County, west of Davenport, with 75% of voters supporting the 77-year-old. Trump renounced from a big celebration after his win, but told his supporters that they were going to "drill right away" by sealing up the border to prevent the "invasion by millions and millions of people" coming into the United States that are supposedly "from prisons and jails...mental institutions and insane asylum that are being emptied out [into the US]". He went on talking about his relations with foreign presidents and promised to stop crimes in the US by giving police officers immunity, while "rebuilding the capital Washington D.C.".
The race for second place was way closer. In the end, Governor Ron DeSantis won in front of Nikki Haley about 20 percentage points behind Donald Trump.
Dubuque County voted in favor of Trump with 48% of votes going to the former president, while Ron DeSantis had 23% and Nikki Haley 20% of votes in their favor.
This caucus showed that Trump has the support from the Republican Party and will most likely be the GOP candidate for the elections in 2024. Other candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy endorsed Trump shortly after his clear victory in Iowa.
Benjamin Reiser